American gymnast Simone Biles was named the Sportswoman of the Year at the 2025 Laureus World Sports Awards as Swedish pole-vaulter Mondo Duplantis claimed the men’s honour. The 25th anniversary Awards, held in Madrid on April 21, honoured the past, celebrated the present and inspired the future, with the biggest names from the world of sport, joined by celebrity sports fans, in a unique mix for which Laureus is renowned. Biles pipped Kenya’s three-time 1500m Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon to the title after a spectacular show in the Olympics last August.
Biles, who won gold medals in the team, all-around and vault competitions, as well as a silver on the floor exercise at the 2024 Paris Games to complete a triumphant comeback three years after withdrawing from events at the Tokyo Olympics, won the Laureus award for the fourth time, equalling the record held by tennis great and U.S. compatriot Serena Williams. Kipyegon was vying for the award after a stellar 2024 season where she broke her own 1500m world record by seven hundredths of a second, running 3:49.04 before heading to the Summer Olympics.
In Paris, Kipyegon became the first athlete ever to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 1500m women’s race, where she also set a new Games record. In addition to the 1500m, she earned a silver medal in the women’s 5000m after successfully appealing a disqualification. In September 2024, she won the 1500m at the 2024 Diamond League final in Brussels, Belgium, in a meeting record time of 3:54.75 before joining the first edition of Athlos, an all-women’s track and field meeting at Icahn Stadium in New York City to take the win.
Other nominees for the World Sportswoman of the Year in 2025 included last year’s winner, Spanish footballer Aitana Bonmati, tennis ace Aryna Sabalenka, and athletics stars Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the US and Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands. “I’m so happy to be here in Madrid and to receive my fourth Laureus Award,” Biles said. “I won this Award for the first time in 2017, and Laureus has been a part of my story since then.” “There might be a little girl watching someone like me on television and deciding she can do it, too.”
Last year’s winner, Novak Djokovic, handed Duplantis his first Laureus award after he was nominated in each of the last three years, becoming only the second track-and-field athlete to win it after Usain Bolt. Widely regarded as one of the greatest pole vaulters of all time, Duplantis won a second straight Olympic gold medal in Paris, breaking his own world record for the ninth time, before shattering it once again in the Silesia Diamond League meeting the following month. “I am incredibly honoured to have won my first Laureus; this is the ultimate award that we athletes want to win,” Duplantis said. “I know because this is the fourth time I have been nominated, and that proves it’s harder to win a Laureus than an Olympic gold medal.”
The winners took home the Laureus statuette awarded to the winner in each category and the prize the greatest athletes in the world value above all other awards – voted on by the 69 sporting legends of the Laureus World Sports Academy. The inaugural Laureus World Sports Awards were held in Monaco in 2000, with this year’s special anniversary edition of “the greatest show in sports” celebrating the growth of Laureus as a unique sporting movement – encompassing the world-famous Awards and the work of Laureus Sport for Good in over 40 countries.
